The Relationships We Never Saw
by BrandonMilledge
Summary: Some characters work so well together... It would seem as if they were meant to be... yet this game does this potential no favors. So, here are my imagined supports that they would have.


**C**

Belka lay, whimpering, on the ground, and Sumia didn't dare to take her eyes off of her. The pegasus flailed its legs and attacked whoever came close to it, without any regard to who was coming close. They had been best friends for the last few weeks after they had purchased him, but now she was acting up in the midst of a wild and unpredictable fever. Sumia stepped forward meekly, raising her hands to either protect herself or embrace her, she wasn't sure which. She received a blunt hoof to the chest that sent her reeling backwards, landing butt down to the ground, now desperate. If someone didn't help Belka, then she would die. She needed medical attention, but she couldn't get close enough to calm him down.

"Is that Belka?" Stahl's voice came from behind her, and Sumia found a slight reassurance in his somewhat steady gaze.

"Yes… I'm just so worried. If she doesn't calm down somehow… I don't know. She's just so frightened. She's so scared. You can see it in her eyes."

"Oh man. I have no idea." Stahl scratched his head. "Where does he like to sleep?"

"Sleep?"

"Yeah. Doze off." Stahl chuckled lightly. "Don't say the stables. No animal likes to sleep there."

"Yeah… But she doesn't really sleep anywhere else… I don't see what this has to do with this though."

"Well, if we make her comfortable and lie her down, maybe she'll stop being frantic."

"I don't think throwing hay on her will make her calm down… She likes Mark. I see them both neighing around each other a bunch. I read that being with a loved one calms one down." Sumia smiles somewhat sadly. "It should be true with both humans and animals, right?"

"I don't know, being around a loved one seems to send me into a nervous breakdown. Tends to stress me out and cause me to worry about every word that comes out of my mouth. Either way, we could just have Frederick come and knock it out real quick."

"NO! I don't want to hurt him more than he already is!"

Stahl grimaced, surprised she had taken it badly. "Just kidding. You know what? I could give her a sleeping potion real quick. I have a couple with me."

"Why do you have sleeping potions? Nevermind, sure. But how would we get her to drink it?"

"...Good question." Stahl sighed. "Might as well try your idea. I'll bring Mark around and see if she calms down. Give me a second."

Sumia returns her eyes to Belka. She was whimpering now, still on the ground, with a bloody hoof and leg.

"Please stop, Belka. You're only hurting yourself." Sumia grimaced as she saw the blood caused by the frantic movement on the not-entirely devoid of rock ground. Then Belka stopped for a second, and Sumia stopped, turning around to see Stahl leading Mark towards them. Mark was a distinctly unattractive horse, with scars, wild, uneven hair, and fur that reflected no amount of sunshine off of it's hairs. Yet Belka calmed. Mark neighed at Belka, and she whimpered back. He walked over to her, pushing his head against her defeated stomach, and she whimpered again.

Stahl came around near to Belka, and gently patted her head. Sumia watched as she accepted the potion and gently closed her eyes.

"Yay, that worked!" Sumia clapped her hands together, smiling. "I wonder why she liked Mark though? He's not really beautiful like the other horses."

"Hah, that's the understatement of the year." Stahl laughed. "He's really smart and kind though, so I love him. He's my horse."

"You two share a lot in common. You know, being kind and all."

Stahl frowned jokingly. "Not smart?"

Sumia smiled pensively. "Well, I guess, in comparison to me. I can't do anything right. Without you Belka would've killed herself on the ground there."

Stahl shrugged. "I don't know if that's smarts on my part. Just common human compassion."

Sumia smiled. "I guess we humans aren't so bad then, right?"

"Yup, I think we're pretty alright. There are a lot of good people out there. You included. I've never seen someone so good with animals."

"Oh… thanks. It's nothing."

"It's not nothing. Nothing's nothing. Well… nevermind. I'll stop talking now. You should have someone take Belka to a healer to have that mended up."

"Aren't you going to…" Sumia called after him as he started walking away, but shook her head. He'd done enough good. Plus, Sully was stronger anyways. Where was she anyway?

 **B**

Stahl watched her picking off flower petals, and walked over, his curiosity piqued.

"I didn't think you were the type to believe in that sort of stuff."

"I'm not! I just… like… pulling petals off of flowers."

Stahl laughed. Her body and face were giving off every single possible sign of untruthfulness. "I'm not here to criticize you or anything. Just curious."

Sumia paused, glancing from Stahl back to the flowers, blushing in embarrassment. "I… just want to feel like I have some control over my life, you know? Everything feels so random and spontaneous…"

"Aren't the petals on flowers kinda random too?" Stahl chuckled.

"...Yeah, I guess. But I feel better because I do it."

"Well, I guess that's admirable in a way. Wanting to have some control over your life. Me, I just let it all happen." He shrugs. "What happens happens. The world keeps spinning."

"...That's great." Sumia frowns. "But then you just end being lazy and never try to improve yourself."

Stahl's smile retreated into introspective anxiety. "Hey! I try to improve myself!"

"I'm not talking directly about you… Well… maybe I was…" She saw Stahl's sad expression. "But don't worry about that. I like you. You must be one of the nicest Shepherds. Nicer even than Robin. The way you calmly figured out a way to help Belka was really great."

"It was your suggestion."

"I was too scared and panicked to actually do anything though. It was your calm attitude that calmed me down enough to even think about other solutions."

"I don't know. I feel like you would've figured it out."

"No! I wouldn't have. I'm useless at everything. I fall everytime I come within a meter of a rock. I can't lift anything heavier than iron… I faint whenever an arrow even glances off of my shoulder plate… and worst of all, I think that reading fortunes will do anything to change me. To make me better." A few tears flow freely down her cheek.

Stahl glanced at her, slightly panicked. This was not good. He would not have her do this to herself. "Sumia, you are not useless." Sumia didn't stop crying. "Listen to me!"

She stopped, looking up at him with red eyes. "How can you know anything about not being useless, Stahl? We're both useless. We both dragging this army. We're the slackers. We're not perfect like Libra or Cordelia. We're not strong like Frederick or Chrom. We're not smart like Robin and Miriel. We're the worst."

Stahl stopped momentarily. Was he a slacker? Was he dragging Chrom and Robin down? Was he keeping them back?

"Sumia… you may be right… but that's okay. We can become better, you know. We can train. We can be better."

He felt like the words glanced right off of her armor, and felt hopeless and indescribably bad. So he sat down beside her and held her tight.

"Thank you for... being with me." She murmured, choking on hopeless self-hatred. "Do you want me to read you your… fortune?" She said, tears straining her voice.

"No… I don't feel like having the future dictated to me. I'm going to train with Sully. You should ask Cordelia for help. I'm going to change, starting right now. You should too. Then maybe we could train together."

Sumia watched him go. What use was it? Was she now going to waste her best friend Cordelia's time as well?

 **A**

Sumia sat by herself in her tent, silently mourning for herself. She couldn't do anything right. She flipped to the last page of her novel, where the heroine defeated the evil. Too bad she couldn't defeat anything in real life. Despite 2 months of hard training, she still couldn't protect her friend. Couldn't do anything. She wasn't worth anything. Not worth the armor she was wearing. The lance she wielded. The pegasus she rode.

Stahl poked his head through the tent opening. "Do you mind if I come in?"

"No… of course not. You're welcome anytime." She frantically hid away her note in the page as a bookmark.

Stahl acted as if he hadn't seen what she'd hidden. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't killing yourself over the last battle. You tried your best."

"I failed. Cordelia's now's been with Lissa and Maribelle for over 3 hours patching together the sword wound she suffered."

"She would've died if you weren't there to kill the soldier that attacked her. It was awesome to see you riding the wind like that. You looked so cool."

"I still failed."

"I'll tell you this much. You improved. You set yourself up a schedule, and stuck to it. Meanwhile I slacked and Sully had to physically haul me around in order to get me to train. You improved your mindset. You achieved a goal. So don't go telling me you failed when you did the opposite of that." He chuckled.

"...Thank you, Stahl. I… needed that."

"...What was that note you were writing?" Stahl asked, his voice incredibly gentle.

"Huh!? That… was nothing. Nothing."

"Can I… see it?" He smirked. "A love letter?"

"No… You don't want to see it."

"Didn't I just say I wanted to see it?"

"Just… don't. It's not an issue anymore."

Stahl's typical smile returned. "Alright… I've learned something from you, Sumia. It's to never give up. I saw you in training. You always picked your lance back up. You never stopped, because you believed it was your duty. You're persistent in your pursuit of self-improvement, whether it be imaginary, like in your ridiculous fortune-telling, or your training. That's something I would like to emulate."

"..."

"See you later, Sumia. Don't… don't… don't kill yourself over it."

Stahl left the tent, and Sumia, hand trembling, opened the book to the note she had left for Cordelia and Chrom. Why had she even considered it!? Why did she think that would've been a good idea!? There were people that loved her, cared for her… It would've been far worse than simply going on. She grasped the note, crumpled it up, and threw it on the ground. She would not give up. Life would go by, and no matter what, she would be ready for it. That's what she had learned from Stahl.

 **S**

Stahl let the ring roll around his hand for a while, considering whether it would work out or not. They were both difficult people. They both had problems. But he couldn't imagine not living with her. He wanted to help her… but most of all, he couldn't bear for her to ever consider killing herself again.

He walked through the encampment, his nervous gait resembling those very signals that Stahl himself was very good at recognizing. He received a few glances, but nobody walked up to him and talked to him. Everyone was his friend, but nobody was his best friend. That's how things went.

He saw her sitting by a bunch of flowers, grasping one and pulling it out of the ground, taking a petal in between her tiny fingers, and taking it off. In the most methodical way, she would pull off each petal, murmuring to herself inexplicably quiet futures, both good and bad. He sat down besides her, and her head snapped to him as he picked out another flower for himself.

"Stahl! I know I said I wouldn't rely on fortunes anymore… but I just wanted to do it one more time…"

Stahl smirked. "I want to see what's so entrancing about it. So… I'm curious. How does this work?"

Sumia blushed. "You… think of two things that could happen, and you pick off one petal one at a time, switching between the two things each petal. The last petal you pick off… represents what will happen."

"Do you usually make large or small predictions with this?"

"...Normally small. Just regular everyday, not important stuff…"

"Then I'll gamble big. What's life without a little risk sometime?" Stahl chuckled. He counted the petals, making sure he would get the outcome he wanted, then he pulled off the first petal. I propose. The second. I don't. For each one he picked off one, then when he got to the last one.

"What'd you get?"

Stahl pulled out the ring, which glinted in the sunlight. Sumia audibly gasped.

"Will you marry me, Sumia?"

Sumia was silent for a moment, before nodding, a smile rapidly jumping across her cheeks. She jumped on Stahl, kissing him furiously.

"Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes!" Sumia smiled, then laughed, but it faded after a second. "Wait. You bet on proposing to me?"

"No. I counted all the petals to make sure I landed on the right one. Made me less nervous."

Sumia frowned. "That's cheating."

"Like I said, the world keeps spinning. I also get you as a wife… Plus… there aren't really any rules to fortune-telling. It's all just made up anyway."

"...I guess."

"I thought about it a while back. You constantly made up two things that you could do or would happen, and you always chose between them. The thing I admired most about it was that if you got a good thing, you would work to make it happen. If you got a bad thing, you would work to make sure it didn't happen. It was a way to motivate you. You were never totally gone in luck, like I was."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I just let things happen, right? I also used to be a pretty big gambler. How else would I have gotten so good at reading expressions?" Stahl chuckled. "The rest of the time, I'm just average."

"I think I can handle that." Sumia smiled, hugging him tight.


End file.
